Rotherham v Swans | Vital Football

Rotherham v Swans

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
This Saturday the away Jacks face a 470 mile round trip to Rotherham consuming over 8 hours of their weekend sitting on a bus or driving a car to watch their team in action, so all credit to them.
All three teams relegated from the Championship bounced back at the first attempt as Rotherham joined Wigan and Blackburn in gaining promotion from League One last season.
Rotherham are not having too good a season so far though, and sit just above the relegation zone, having won 3 from 15 matches compared to Swans 6 from 15. Their last two matches have been away and they’ve earned two creditable draws at Preston and Middlesboro respectively.
They seem to be the draw specialists of this division, last 6 games - 0 won, 5 drawn, 1 lost, scoring 5 goals and conceding 7.
Our form over the same period was 3 won 1 drawn, 2 lost, scoring 10 goals and conceding 5.
 
Not sure how we lost this one. We were cruising, and maybe that was the problem, in cruise control and should have made more of an effort to kill the game off rather than just being comfortable and playing out a 1-0 lead. Anything can happen in football as they say and it did.

Penalties - can;'t have many complaints. Nordfeldt showed his lack of skills and command of his box with his failure to deal with that ball and we were rightly punished for it. Second one was harsh but Fer has to be braver there.
 
Hi “enh”, couldn’t agree more. Still in shock over this defeat.
It was a cold and cloudy day at the neat and compact New York stadium. About 750 of us made the long journey up, full of optimism that we could continue our winning run.
First half I have never seen a side so dominated and outclassed, it was almost embarrassing. They more or less sat back and let us have the ball,or more likely couldn’t get it off us.
Celina and James both had chances but goalkeeper Rodak was in fine form before James beat his man and crossed for McBurnie to slot home in the 25th minute.
We waited for the avalanche of goals to come but frustration set in as we snatched at chances.
Second half we dominated again as Rodak saved a Fer shot and Fulton blasted over.
And so it went on until the 70th minute, when the game changed and Rotherham had a Manning free kick that was well saved by Nordfelt.
Suddenly you thought that by some fluke they could equalise, and so it turned out.
A speculative up and under from goalkeeper Rodak in the 79th minute ended with Proctor adjudged to have been brought down by a hesitant Nordfelt and the little Yorkshire ref, who had been weak with Rotherham’s robust play all afternoon, couldn’t wait to blow his whistle. Manning duly stepped up to slot home.
The Jacks were in shock, but worse was to come as Rotherham woke up at last and started to press us.
In the 87th minute Rotherham won a free kick. The ball was blasted straight at Fer head height, he raised his hands to his face in a natural reaction and the ref decided he had handled and gave another soft penalty which Manning hit same side of goal to score again.
The Rotherham supporters who had been silent throughout were in raptures and the Jacks were stunned to silence.
Potter brought on McKay and Richardson for Fulton and Naughton in the 90th minute, for 5 mins of injury time, but far far too late to make a difference and the match was over.
A harsh lesson this, and one to learn from, but didn’t we say that after the Ipswich defeat, so in reality we haven’t learnt anything.
 
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Time for a bit of blame culture!
How Nordfelt is picked over Mulder each match is puzzling every Jack you talk to.
He is hesitant, doesn’t command his area, is stuck on his line and doesnt come for crosses, and his distribution is woeful, although to be fair he is a good shot stopper.
Mulder does all of these things well, yet is ignored, he must be very frustrated and I’m expecting we’ll see a transfer request from him soon.
Fer is not a 90 min player and he has a history of strolling through games sometimes. He should have been subbed after 60 mins as he was flagging, maybe not fully fit after injury though.
We needed an injection of fresh legs and Potter waited far too late to make changes.
 
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The team and management need to sit down and sort this out.
Throwing away games needlessly is seriously affecting our chances of doing well this season.
It reminds me of that nursery rhyme “when she was good she was very very good and when she was bad she was horrid”. Substitute “they” for “she” and it sums up our team at the moment.
Just think, if we hadn’t blown it against Ipswich and Rotherham we would now be sitting second in the table.
 
Swans stats compared to Rotherham -
Possession 72% - 38%
Shots 12 - 7 (can’t remember Rotherham having 7 shots!)
Shots on target 4 - 4 (their 4 must include the 2 penalties)
Corners 3 - 2
Fouls 17 - 12
Yellow Cards 4 - 2 ( a joke from a biased Yorkshire joke referee. Rotherham fouled at will, when we did the same the cards came out)
 
Our manager’s comments to the Press after the game -
"We didn't score the second goal and at 1-0 you always leave yourselves open to anything and that proved to be the case.
If you look at the game we had enough chances to score the second, but we didn't manage to do that.
The penalties, I haven't seen them back, but the first one, their boy is offside to start with and then I wasn't so sure, there didn't seem too much in it.
The second one, I see why he's given it, but the ball is hit so hard at Leroy... but that can happen.
When it is 1-0 and you've been dominant, if you don't score the second anything can happen. We have to take the pain from this and try and be better."

Their manager’s comments after the game -
"I'm not going to tell a lie. I wasn't happy with our performance. In fairness, I think the lads gave everything they had. They were significantly better than us, virtually in every department for the majority of the game.
No one in the dressing room is proud of the performance but we're proud of the result. I'm definitely proud of the character of my team.
For us to get a 2-1 win out of a disappointing performance is impressive and at least we can send the fans home happy - which I'd actually like to mention because they've stuck with the players today.
They realised how good a side Swansea were and how difficult it was for us to even put a glove on them at times. I'd like to thank them for that."
 
The maddening part about it is that we played so well.
We were guilty of over elaboration at times instead of keeping it simple.
McBurnie needs help up front, can a fit Bony be that man.
 
I liked this comment from a Rotherham fan, taken from another forum -
I think many are tipping Stoke and Derby to be up there, but we beat Derby and should have beaten Stoke after being 2-0 up.
Swansea should have won 2 or 3 nil today, the ref was a right tool, and both pens were dubious but we need the points.
Swansea looked like a Prem side playing in the Championship.
 
Slovakian goalkeeper Marek Rodak, on loan from Fulham, was Rotherham’s man of the match, he saved almost everything thrown at him.